


quantum

by ndnickerson



Category: Nancy Drew - Carolyn Keene
Genre: Established Relationship, F/M, Imprisonment, Reunion Sex, Reunions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-26
Updated: 2019-05-26
Packaged: 2020-03-17 14:19:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18966964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ndnickerson/pseuds/ndnickerson
Summary: Ned never really imagined picking Nancy up from jail.





	quantum

In the pre-dawn, the motel is quiet. Ned stands in the shower, and his gaze doesn't stay anywhere for long. Three dark hairs cling to the shower curtain, longer than Nancy's hair, curling. The grout is starting to crumble between the tiles. It's a little run-down, but it's the only place close enough.

The shower head sputters behind him. He has to bend his knees slightly so the water will hit the top of his head.

It's warm for November, or at least it would be back in Illinois. He pokes his towel-dried, but still damp head through the neck of a henley and tugs it down, pulls up his jeans mechanically, his mind twenty miles away. He's coaxed two cups of passable coffee from the miniature pot at the bathroom sink, but he hardly needs it. It's not that he's circled this date on a calendar, but it's been on his mind for so long that a reminder would be redundant.

He has no words for the shift that's happened, and he likely won't until he sees her.

He arrives at 7:33 and grabs a molded plastic chair near the door. Thanks to daylight savings, the sun's already up, the light filtering through dappled red-brown leaves onto the wet, rotting ones below. He checks his watch and the clock repeatedly, every second passing like three in this fluorescent box. He's too jittery to pull out his cell phone and waste time that way. From behind the glass he hears a bland, monotonal voice, oft interrupted, insist that nothing can be done, then the decisive click of a phone receiver.

At precisely 8:01, he hears a distant buzzer and nearly vaults out of his chair, stopping himself with a quietly drawn breath.

It's been more than two weeks and somehow this feels like Christmas morning, but infinitely worse. Like bees are thrumming in his bones.

Nancy's eyes light up when she sees him, but her smile is small. On the other side of an electronic gate she's going through some kind of process, receiving a bag, signing forms. Her motions are slow and careful.

In a way, it feels like he's in a dream, although his disbelief has faded significantly. It happened. It will always have happened, now.

Nancy was arrested and convicted, and served out her sentence. He's here to take her home.

Oh, it could have been worse, and he knows that. Her father pulled some strings to have the charges reduced, to encourage those involved to be lenient. But it's all caught up with her, he thinks. She doesn't look defiant, enraged, ready for a fight. She looks...

She looks like the morning after an infinite night.

Nancy's not the sun and moon to him, and they've been apart, learned to be apart, for a long time now. She's seen other people, and so has he. They just keep gravitating back, falling into each other's arms, and earlier this year they made it official. It's not settling; it's admitting what everyone else has known for years now.

He still loves her. He always will. There is no _but_ , just a feeling that the floor has been jerked out from under him, or maybe both of them. A feeling that he doesn't know where either of them has landed now.

She doesn't launch herself into his arms once the buzzer sounds and she walks into the waiting area. Her eyes are aglow, though, and that small smile grows into a beaming grin. He returns it, searching her face.

She has to be different now.

He reaches for her hand and they walk out to his car. She's measuring her steps and he wonders if a part of her just wants to run. Traffic has picked up on the road in front of the jail. People are showing up for court dates, attorneys are hustling in carrying coffee cups trailing steam. The frost that barely edged the air when he left the motel is melting under the sunlight.

"Breakfast?" His voice sounds rusty.

She nods eagerly. Her hand gives his a squeeze as she glances over, quick enough that he could easily have missed it.

"Are you okay?"

She nods again. "We'll talk about it," she says. "Pancakes first."

The trial was quick. The prosecution had surveillance footage, and maybe Nancy dresses inconspicuously when she's planning a break-in, but there's no disguising that reddish-gold hair. She didn't speak at all, other than to enter her plea. She looked smaller, dressed well and deferring to her attorney, a woman her father knew.

Maybe the charges would have been dismissed if she'd had her father representing her, if she'd had access to some of her father's more powerful connections, but he isn't licensed to practice law here.

"Are you... all right?" Her blue eyes are wide and sincere, her hand on his forearm as he buckles his belt. Maybe it's not as cold here as in Illinois, but it's definitely cold enough. "Thanks for coming to get me," she adds, quick, like an afterthought.

He smiles. "Just thinking too hard," he murmurs, and gives her hand a squeeze in return, too. "I'm just glad you're here."

She snickers, then chuckles. She knows what he means. Neither of them ever imagined a day like this one, not really.

She orders one of the largest platters on the menu, and Ned sits back, a smile flirting with his lips, once the server delivers it. A stack of golden pancakes, glistening with just-melting butter; scrambled eggs, sausage patties, and bacon all crowded to the edges of another plate; a bowl of fresh fruit, another heavy mug of dark coffee. Initially she eats as though her last bite was just before she was taken into custody, but soon her enthusiasm has flagged. The edge of her fork slides down through the stack of pancakes, carving off another bite, but she doesn't spear it.

Ned polished off a southwest omelet and a double order of bacon, but his gaze is still drawn to her pancakes, and to her. When her gaze comes up his own slides away, but he finds himself cataloguing the changes he sees in her face. She doesn't look well-rested; she doesn't have that glow about her anymore, that warmth in her cheeks. She doesn't look upset, just... just tired. Almost fragile. And... resolved, he thinks, but resolved to do what, he doesn't know.

She pushes her plate away and draws the small beige bowl of fruit toward her, spearing a bite of strawberry and a red grape, already partially smashed. "I'm done," she announces, and then her gaze flicks up to his, a certain wariness in her expression.

A draft is coming from somewhere, swirling about their ankles, and in the cold light the shadows under her eyes are a harsh gray-blue. He hears a metallic crash in the kitchen, the almost melodic rise and fall of an answering shout, then nothing.

"With what?"

Her calm veneer doesn't break, but it shifts to something apologetic. Responding to the fear she can undoubtedly see on his face, as impassive as he hopes he looks. "No, not... I mean, with..." She gives a wave, glancing around.

"Being—there?"

She snorts. "That, too. But mostly with not doing much. Not really having a plan for my life."

Ned raises his eyebrows a fraction of an inch. "To help people," he says. "At least, that's what I'd always thought."

She smiles. "Well, yeah," she agrees, reaching for her coffee cup, rubbing her thumb along the curve of it. Her gaze darts up to meet his again. "I missed you so much."

He smiles and reaches for her hand, and at the contact, he feels both reassured and energized. "This time felt longer than usual," he admits.

"For us both, I'm sure." Her fingertips caress his palm, and his breath catches in his throat.

She takes a deep breath. "I want to be a public defender."

Ned somehow manages to stop his jaw from dropping. "That... is not what I expected you to say."

She shrugs a little, but her eyes are sparkling. "They employ investigators," she says. "And that's what I want to do. To help people who wouldn't have the means to pay someone. You know how I am."

"I've never seen you ask for anything, when you take a case. You don't even want the recognition." He laces his fingers through hers.

"And it would be perfect. I'd need to get a four-year degree, basically, but I have so much experience already..."

He's never—no, he's seen her this excited, this intense before, but it's always in the context of a case she's working on. She's done research and contacted people; of course her father must know public defenders. And it's a world she's intimately familiar with, even though she's always denied any interest in following in her father's footsteps and earning a law degree.

"So what do you think?" she asks, after her rundown of it. The vulnerability and hope in her eyes is almost painful to see. She's asked for his approval so rarely that seeing her this way makes his heart beat a little harder.

"I think it sounds perfect for you."

Her hopeful expression melts into a smile before her gaze darts back up to his. "Even though I'll probably never be rich?"

"You know that it's never been about that, not for me."

"Yeah, but... I've been in a holding pattern for a while now. I knew what I wanted to do, but I just didn't realize this was out there for me." Her lips quirk up in a small sardonic smile. "And maybe I never would have figured it out, if not for this."

"Sounds like it definitely made the time go by faster."

"Yeah, sometimes." She gives his hand a squeeze before releasing it to pick up her fork again. "It's just... do you know how many times I _should_ have been in jail, before this?"

He snickers, hoping he's gauged her mood correctly. He's pretty sure he has. "I can think of a dozen times without trying."

"Yeah. And I knew that, but... in the back of my mind, I was always doing it for the right reasons. People would understand and forgive that, forgive the circumstances. And I always had my father." She shrugs. "I feel like an asshole for saying that, but it's true. And then, this... they had me dead to rights."

It's true. He's so used to the bubble that's cushioned her for so long that it's easy to forget. Any time she brought out her lockpicks, she'd known. They all had.

But they were in it for the right reasons.

"Guess it took jail for me to see how lucky I've been." Her smile is crooked.

Ned touches her arm, and at the contact, that same electric spark lights him up again. "You have been. _We_ have been. And I know most of the times I can remember, if you'd been in a cell I would've been right beside you. That's where I want to be, Nan, no matter what."

Her smile is sweet and genuine. "How many times did I tell you I missed you?"

"Every time we talked." They spoke at least every other day; he'd been able to tell she was bored, anxious, but he hadn't imagined anything like this. Now she's here, and he's finally letting himself believe it. She's free.

"Well, I think I need to show you." Her eyes twinkle. "How much longer do you have that room?"

He glances at his watch. "What do you think you can do with three hours?"

"I'd love to find out."

\--

She didn't run. She's ridiculously proud of that. No matter what, she didn't run, didn't show her fear.

It's just that now, she _wants_ to, from sheer joy. The world outside is brisk and gray, and she's never loved it more. Everything looks so vibrant and clear, and even the air itself seems fresh and welcome. She doesn't have rough seams in stiff cotton chafing against bare skin; she's not bolting everything, rushing through everything, wishing only for the security of a wall behind her and time she owes no one else.

Ned slides the key into the reader and shoulders the door open, and in the space of a heartbeat they're tangled together, stumbling toward the bed, spread with a hideous, faded sprigged duvet. She's laughing, breathless, tugging at the hem of his shirt as he ducks in and nuzzles against her neck.

"Are you sure you don't care?"

Ned pauses, his hips between her open legs as he pins her under him, her back against that hideous comforter. They still have way too many layers to get through, but she's been impatient for this and him for far too long. He looks down at her and she gazes up into his dark eyes, remembering when her longing for him was a tangible, terrible ache. Last night was the worst.

"You got me. I've only ever wanted an attorney for a wife."

She giggles at the mock intense expression on his face. She was so afraid that he would look at her differently now, but she doesn't see it. The slight awkwardness alone was heartbreaking enough.

"It's not very glamorous. Not like being in the State Attorney's office."

He shrugs, his expression softening, and he leans down to brush his lips against her cheek. "Only you would use the word 'glamorous' to describe being a prosecutor."

She grins, her fingers combing through his hair as his teeth gently scrape against her earlobe. "Putting bad guys away isn't glamorous to you?"

Then his tongue finds that sensitive place just behind her earlobe, and she lets out her breath as a sigh, her lashes fluttering. "You've always been more about helping people in trouble," he points out, and then his mouth slides lower, down the column of her throat, to the join of her neck and shoulder. "One of the things I've always loved about you."

She shivers in pleasure, both at his words and what he's doing to her. He isn't treating her differently, like she's tainted now, and while she's been afraid to encourage him, now she reaches for his fly. "This okay?" she murmurs, when he brings his head up a few inches.

He gives her a slow, confident grin, full of desire. "What do you think," he murmurs, holding her gaze as he slides her sweater up.

Before Ned, she had never understood how intoxicating and thrilling this could be. At first she can think clearly; at first her caresses are deliberate, her responses to him measured and weighed. But then they're naked, under the covers, curled together, and his tongue is against her nipple and his hand is splayed over her thigh, and there's nothing but need. She wraps her legs around him, moving until he's positioned just right, and their lips meet in a searing kiss as his hips settle between her thighs.

_It's never been about that for me._

He could be anything, could have everything... and somehow, miraculously, he's chosen her. It's inexplicable. She's peered inside it, tested it, wondered and feared... and it's held. His love for her has held, even past this.

"Are you here with me?"

She strokes his hair, feeling that familiar quiver, love and need and fear all tangled up together and tightening her abdomen. His dark eyes, so sweet and loving, concerned for her. For _her._

"Always," she breathes in answer, shivering as he finds her again.

**Author's Note:**

> This story was originally published elsewhere. If you enjoyed it, please consider leaving feedback!


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